Not So Fast “Fast” Food

Not So Fast “Fast” Food:

Lets face it in the world we live in there is not a lot of extra time to do anything extra let alone sit down for a home made meal with friends or family. The busy hustle of work mixed with training and piecing together a social life makes for very little time to play Chef Boyardee with your Easy Bake Oven. Believe me I am as guilty as the next guy for just “grabbing” something quick. I realize that in the context of the audience reading this we are all some sort of athlete we might run the occasional 5k or 10k and some of us are multiple ironman finishers and I may be preaching to the choir but hopefully this message will be forwarded on to a person in need of some help. Someone who just does not know or care enough to make a difference in they way they eat. Doesn’t understand that better eating habits can and will change their outlook on life and appearance. Simply having better eating habits can be the solution to many problems we may be facing at home or in life. 

Something Useful:

I wanted to compare some fast food restaurants’ typical meals to the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) I chose 4 fast food establishments, McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, KFC and 1 Popular Coffee chain Starbucks.  I chose meals based off of a consensus from my colleagues around me that were sensible and not off the charts, I did not want to skew the data to far to the extreme. The Meals are as follows

MD-                       Big Mac, Large Fries and 32oz coke
BK-                        Double Whopper, Large Fries  and 32oz coke

WD-                       Baja Chicken Salad, Baked Potato w/sc and 32oz coke

Taco Bell-               Beefy 5 Layer Burrito, Cinnamon Twists and 32oz coke

KFC-                     Chicken Pot Pie, Mashed Potatoes and 32oz coke

Starbucks-              Venti Carmel Macchiato

The next thing I wanted to compare was how each 1 of these meals stacks up against the RDA for Calories, Protein, Fat, Saturated Fat, Fiber and Sodium. Here are the results

	RDA		%MD	%BK	%WD	%TB	%KFC	%SB
Calories	2500	kcal	53%	68%	47%	41%	71%	13%
Protein	65	g	48%	80%	62%	31%	85%	20%
FAT	70	g	77%	113%	51%	41%	109%	19%
SATF	23	g	59%	98%	70%	43%	196%	33%
Fiber	25	g	36%	32%	76%	40%	36%	0%
Sodium	1700	mg	83%	105%	98%	20%	242%	9%

I also wanted to compare after eating each meal how much Calories, Protein, Fat, Saturated Fat, Fiber and Sodium you were able to consume (Subtracting from the RDA) after eating 1 of these meals. Here are the results.

What’s Left after 1 meal		MD	BK	WD	TB	KFC	SB
Calories	kcal	1180	790	1330	1480	720	2164
Protein	g	34	13	25	45	10	52.1
FAT	g	16	-9	34.5	41	-6	56.9
SATF	g	9.5	0.5	7	13	-22	15.5
Fiber	g	16	17	6	15	16	25
Sodium	mg	290	-80	30	1360	-2420	1539

Finally I wanted to compare how each of these meals stacks up against a balanced diet of 5 equally portioned out meals per day. (Just divide out the RDA by 5 meals). Here are the results.

5 meals/day			%MD	%BK	%WD	%TB	%KFC	%SB
Calories	500	kcal	264%	342%	234%	204%	356%	67%
Protein	13	g	238%	400%	308%	154%	423%	99%
FAT	14	g	386%	564%	254%	207%	543%	94%
SATF	4.6	g	293%	489%	348%	217%	978%	163%
Fiber	5	g	180%	160%	380%	200%	180%	0%
Sodium	340	mg	415%	524%	491%	100%	1212%	47%

Conclusion:

I think that everyone knows that eating fast food is bad for you, but how are they so popular. If everyone knows they are bad then why do they continue to operate and stay in business. The answer to this question is pretty complicated and debatable but it is likely some combination of laziness, poverty and ignorance. It’s easy to see that each of these above meals provides way too many Calories, Protein, Fat, SATF, and Sodium and not nearly enough quality Fiber. Excessive intake of Calories, Saturated Fat, and Sodium has been proven in multiple studies to have adverse health consequences.  Furthermore the quality of “Fast” Food lacks nourishment needed for any performance, almost no bio available vitamins and low in quality fiber. If you think that I am attacking the fast food industry you are correct, there is little to no initiative to provide nourishing meals for people who need it the most. If you would like to learn a little more about healthy eating click here. 

At the end of the day you are probably asking your self how can I make better choices, start by making small goals and realize the every moment in every day is an opportunity to make a change.  So its time to slow down, cook at home, and make smart choices.